Great Texas Women

Welcome to the Great Texas Women web site. The site was designed to support and enhance
the Gallery of Great Texas Women. The Gallery is located on the first floor of
Kinsolving Residence Hall at The University of Texas at Austin. The Great Texas Women website brings together a wealth of web resources including biographies, quotes, articles and other information about Texas women.

The song, “Standing Before Us,” was discovered by Floyd Hoelting at St. Scholastica Convent in
Fort Smith, Arkansas. For decades, this community of Benedictine nuns has sung the song in
celebration of those before them. It is used in the gallery with kind permission of the author,
Carole Etzler, to honor Texas women who came before us and to remind us of the importance of women
to Texas greatness and how they will continue to impact the future of Texas.

“Standing Before Us”

These are the women who throughout the decades
have led us and helped us to know
where we have come from and where we are going,
the women who’ve helped us to grow.

(Chorus) Standing before us, making us strong,
lending their wisdom to help us along,
sharing a vision, sharing a dream,
touching our thoughts,
touching our lives like a deepflowing
stream—
touching our thoughts,
touching our lives like a deep-flowing stream.

These are the women who joined in the struggle,
angry and gentle and wise.
These are the
women who called us to action,
who called us to open our eyes.

These are the women who nurtured our spirits,
the ones on whom we could depend.
These
are the women who gave us their courage,
our mentors, our sisters, our friends.

These are a few of the women who led us.
We know there have been many more.
We name
but a few, yet we honor them all,
those women who went on before.